Hong Kong and Macau

Every time the Chinese holidays come around we say we should avoid the crowds and not travel in China, yet we seem to continue to do it anyway. For the national days we wanted to try to get out of the country to the avoid the crowds but we found cheap tickets on Spring Airlines to Hong Kong and decided to do it with the mild hope it would be less crowded than most of mainland China.

We stayed in a hostel in the Chung King Mansions in Kowloon for the first two nights. Hong Kong is really pricy so we got a somewhat crappy room but the neighborhood is really cute. I think Kowloon to Hong Kong is sort of like Brooklyn is to NY. Some parts felt a bit trendy like Williamsburg. There also are little pockets of other ethnic groups, where we stayed had a big Indian population. Hong Kong in general felt a lot more diverse than the rest of China.

The first day we walked along the Avenue of the Stars, it was pretty much a knock off of the one in LA but with Chinese actors I mostly never heard of. It was pretty underwhelming but had a pretty view of the skyline.

 

From there we headed to Lantau Island to see the world’s largest seated Buddha called Tian Tan Buddha. There are actually bigger Buddha’s in China though. It involved a three hour line to get a cable car to the top. Unlike mainland China, in Hong Kong natives are polite and generally wait patiently. We kept noticing every time someone was rude and shoving they spoke Manderin and turned out to be from mainland China. Hong Kong locals speak Cantonese. Their English is generally pretty decent and you can get by there without knowing any Cantonese, at least in the really touristy places. There also are a lot of people who speak Mandarin and Danny kept speaking it instead of English, which I thought was silly since most of the time their English was about as good as their Mandarin. While we waited in line Danny read all the posters about Falun Gong. If you never heard of it, Falon Gong is a quasi-religious movement that a lot of people in the states seem to protest in favor of solely because China is against them. I’m not exactly in support of China’s government, but it seems like supporting the weird new age religion that may or may not be a cult is a weird way to speak out against China. Even though Hong Kong is technically part of China, since it was a British colony for so long things are a bit different and there is supposed to be freedom of speech. It was nice to not have the firewall for a few days. Anyway, by the line there were giant signs everywhere saying “The Chinese government is killing Falun Gong members and selling their organs.” “Bring Jiang e Min [the previous Chinese premiere] to justice.”  “Without the communist party is how you have a real China.” “The communist party doesn’t represent China, to love China doesn’t mean to love the party.” As well as signs saying “Cherish your life, stay away from the evil cult – Falon Gong.” “Li Hongzhi [founder of Falon Gong] is a wanted person. Bring justice to Li Hongzhi.” Interestingly, when we passed by on the way back from the the giant Buddha all the pro Falon Gong signs had been taken down.

Once the line finally ended the giant Buddha was actually pretty cool. There was a great view from the top of the cable cars and once we got to the top there was a performance trope plus lots of yummy restaurants which (since it is a Buddhist site) had tons of veggie options. I was sort of disappointed when I looked up the site later and found out it was built around 1990 and has very little historical value.

That night when we got back they had fireworks for National Day two blocks from our hotel. We had to sneak in to see them by saying we were at a different hotel closer to the water since crowd control was pretty intense. Danny took tons of fireworks pictures because we got a new DSLR camera and for the first time we have a good enough camera to capture fireworks. Expect better photos from us in the future, especially if I figure out how to use it outside of auto mode.

We left the fireworks early and went to a night market called the Ladies Market, since everyone says the main thing to do in Hong Kong is shop. On the way there I discovered Body Shop still exists, I thought they went out of business, apparently they all moved to Hong Kong.

The next day we took a ferry to Macau. Macau is sort of cool because since it was controlled by the Portuguese for a long time it actually looks European. Hong Kong was controlled by the British but it pretty much looks like any other Chinese city. We walked around the tiny historic district of Macau want saw the ruins of St. Paul’s Church, a little museum, a few historic buildings and some lion dancers. It was really pretty there and felt like a weird mix between China and Europe. It was really crowded because of the Chinese holidays and the narrow streets so we didn’t stay too long.

The thing Macau is mostly famous for is its casinos. It is sort of like China’s Vegas. When we visited Vegas two years ago I was pleasantly surprised by all the fun non-gamboling related things to see and do in the casinos. I really liked the theme based casinos like the Venetian, Paris, and New York, New York. From what I’d heard the Chinese casinos are more gamboling focused and didn’t have much else. We only really spent time in one casino, the Venetian, which was very similar to the one in Vegas but a few fewer restaurant choices I liked. The even offered gondola rides but I skipped it.

That night we checked into the Hyatt in the center of Hong Kong, probably the fanciest hotel Danny and I ever stayed in together… we found a deal to stay for free… The next day we were kind of unmotivated to leave the hotel because it was so nice.

In the morning Danny’s mom woke us up early by calling the hotel because she heard on the news there was a ferry crash just off of Lantou Island, near the giant Buddha, and about 20 people died.

 

We had lunch and dinner in Soho, a really trendy area with lots of western restaurants. It is very hilly so they built more outdoor escalators than any city I have ever seen. I was super excited they had a Ben and Jerry's... so excited that I was so busy staring at it I tripped over my feet and Danny laughed at me. 

We went to Victoria Peak, which involved waiting in line for and hour and a half to take a cable car up and see a pretty view of the city.

Overall, I liked Hong Kong. It seems like a very livable city but doesn't have too much of interest in terms of historical sites or a ton of natural beauty.